conduct a study of the environment in 2007. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an intergovernmental economic organisation with 36 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade. This report discovered that by 2020, uncontrolled pollution would cause an approximate 600,000 premature deaths in urban areas, 20 million cases of respiratory illness per year and up to 7% of China’s annual GDP being lost due to pollution. If stronger environmental laws are not implemented, there is also a possibility for this number to rise to 13%. Furthermore, although the high-income OECD countries account for 40% of global carbon dioxide emissions in 2006, China and other developing countries are responsible for an increasing share of the world’s total emissions. Also, China has an ever-rising per capita CO2 emission. This per capital carbon dioxide emission was 3.2 metric tonnes in 2003, compared to 19.9 metric tonnes in the USA, 10.3 metric tonnes in the Russian Federation and 1.2 metric tonnes in India. The World Bank estimated that China’s per capita emissions grew by 6.5% annually between 1970 and 2011 to 6.7 metric tonnes per capita. Moreover, as of 2013, China’s total CO2 emissions were estimated at 10,249.5 million metric tonnes (The World Bank), making it the largest polluting country in the world. However, in China there are also many other environmental problems aside from carbon emissions that are significant. For example, the OECD estimates that up to 300m people are drinking contaminated water on a daily basis, also, there have been a loss of natural grasslands and forests due to the expansion of industry and agriculture, a loss of topsoil, vegetation, lakes (15% since the 1950’s) and wetlands (26% since the 1950’s), shortages of water due to drought and insufficient irrigation systems and inadequate disposal of household and industrial waste (20% of solid waste/year is being properly disposed of). In order to battle these environmental problems, the Chinese government has set targets for reducing pollution levels by committing US$6.6b in 2015 in new spending, including the complete shutdown of coal fired power stations. China also signed the UNFCCC’s Paris Agreement in 2015 and agreed to peak its CO2 emissions in 2030 and launch a national cap and trade emissions programme in 2017.